Single: “The Great Unseen” by Pteroglyph
August 5, 2013
After parting ways with his old band Mishkin, guitarist Jimmy MacGregor went in to the studio and recorded an EP, playing all the instruments and doing the vocal work himself. The result was “Found”.
Having gained a positive response to that, he has recruited some likeminded musicians and set about on the follow up “The Great Unseen”. It’s going to be a three track EP coming out on the 26th of August 2013 and he has released the first track for review and video to go with it.
The track in question is thirteen minutes long and is a weird concoction of Death, Thrash and Progressive Metal. It’s has polyrhythmic drumming overlaid with a standard chug-chug-chug riff and repeating vocals that involves clean singing mixed with guttural drones. A brief interlude during the song slows everything down with gentle guitar picking, then it carries on as it left off.
Don’t get me wrong this is a good song with interesting tempo changes and excellent guitar work but is there enough here to make it stand out from the crowd? Sadly not I’m afraid! If you are a Meshuggah fan and also like what Devin Townsend has been doing recently when you might be interested in listening to Pteroglyth, but given the choice of parting with some cash on this or on the afore-mentioned artists, then I’d get the Meshuggah album instead. But it isn’t really fair though, as I am only going by the one song I have been given and the other two could propel the EP into a musical “must have”. I hope Jimmy MacGregor has a plan up his sleeve. That said the new tracks increase in originality and don’t go over the same ground that others in the genre have already done and are still musically evolving.
Words: Dan O’Gara